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Major tech companies unite to call for new limits on surveillance

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    Eight of the nation's largest technology companies called on President Obama and Congress on Monday to impose strict new curbs on surveillance that, if enacted, would dramatically reshape intelligence operations that U.S. officials have portrayed as integral to the war on terrorism.

    The uncommonly unified front — featuring companies, such as Google and Microsoft, that compete fiercely on business matters — underscored the deep alarm among technology leaders over revelations that the National Security Agency has collected user data far more extensively than the companies understood, in many cases with little or no court oversight.

    In a letter to U.S. leaders published in several newspapers Monday, the coalition calls for an end to bulk collection of user information — such as e-mail, address books and video chats — and for the enactment of significant new protections when courts consider specific surveillance requests.

    "We understand that governments have a duty to protect their citizens. But this summer's revelations highlighted the urgent need to reform government surveillance practices worldwide," the letter says. "The balance in many countries has tipped too far in favor of the state and away from the rights of the individual — rights that are enshrined in our Constitution. This undermines the freedoms we all cherish."

    In addition to Microsoft and Google, the signers are Apple, Facebook, LinkedIn, Yahoo, AOL and Twitter.

    The proposals include a call for strong judicial oversight and an adversarial process for surveillance requests, including at the secretive Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.

    The proposals bring the companies closer to the views espoused by privacy and human rights advocates, as well as to the USA Freedom Act, sponsored by Rep. F. James Sensenbrenner Jr. (R-Wis.) and Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.). It is one of several bills drafted in response to the controversy over the revelations.

    Reports in The Washington Post and in Britain's Guardian newspaper, based on documents provided by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden, have shaken the tech industry since June and imperiled multibillion-dollar businesses that rely, at least in part, on user trust. Most troubling, industry officials say, was a Post report in October detailing how the NSA and its British counterpart were taking massive flows of information directly from the private communications links among data centers operated by Google and Yahoo.

    Backlash has run particularly strong in Europe and in Brazil, where government officials have reacted with fury to news that the NSA gained access to vast amounts of personal information about their citizens, with little of the legal protection afforded to U.S. citizens.

    "Recent revelations about government surveillance activities have shaken the trust of our users, and it is time for the United States government to act to restore the confidence of citizens around the world," Marissa Mayer, Yahoo's chief executive, said in a statement.

    There has been a major push for new laws in several nations to limit international data flows in ways that industry officials say could hobble the functioning of the Internet. Consumer advocates have pointed out that government surveillance systems benefit from the voracious data collection done by private companies, which gather information to more precisely target the advertising that provides much of the industry's profits.

    U.S. intelligence officials have staunchly defended their surveillance practices. In a statement last month, the NSA said that efforts are focused on gathering intelligence against legitimate foreign targets, "not on collecting and exploiting a class of communications or services that would sweep up communications that are not of bona fide foreign intelligence interest to the U.S. government."

    Amid the revelations about NSA data collection, several major technology companies have embarked on initiatives to encrypt data in hopes of thwarting government spying. Companies also have pushed for greater transparency in surveillance requests so that they can offer more detailed accounts of the information they are compelled to turn over to government officials.

    But Monday's initiative goes further still by calling for substantive changes in the nation's surveillance systems themselves and urging that other countries undertake similar reforms. The tech industry has emerged in recent years as one of the more influential in Washington, after years when companies often were content to stay on the legislative sidelines and avoid conflict.

    "This united call for surveillance reform is a game changer," said Leslie Harris, president of the Center for Democracy and Technology, a D.C.-based advocacy group that receives some industry support. "Bringing these powerful voices to this really important fight is going to rebalance the scales."

    As most of you are probably aware, this article emerges from the backdrop of a revelation of government surveillance of electronic media. Leaks provided by Edward Snowden revealed that several large tech companies were "complicit" (that remains to be debated) with the government in setting up these data collection programs. Now it seems that these companies are trying to change the status quo.

    About time? Do you think this will be successful - will it lead to change in surveillance legislation? Are the companies doing it out of protecting their bottom line and consumer trust or do you think they truly value freedoms and rights? These are US companies, how do you think this would affect the policies of foreign countries?

    Discuss.

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/busi...0f0fd4-6051-11e3-bf45-61f69f54fc5f_story.html
     
    I think it'll change a lot for us too, not only for the US.
    I mean, at least 97% of all Computers worldwide run an OS made by American companies, if they stop doing all this in the US, it'd be a London to a brick they'd stop for everyone too.

    Practically, everyone in Europe knew Americans spy on everyone, since technology was invented.
    But now one person escaped from the USA to Hong Kong to Russia, and now just people realised it's more evil than expected.
     
    As most of you are probably aware, this article emerges from the backdrop of a revelation of government surveillance of electronic media. Leaks provided by Edward Snowden revealed that several large tech companies were "complicit" (that remains to be debated) with the government in setting up these data collection programs. Now it seems that these companies are trying to change the status quo.

    About time? Do you think this will be successful - will it lead to change in surveillance legislation? Are the companies doing it out of protecting their bottom line and consumer trust or do you think they truly value freedoms and rights? These are US companies, how do you think this would affect the policies of foreign countries?

    Discuss.

    Change has been way overdue, but this isn't it: so long as US citisens are willing to eat fear propaganda and being told to "never forget", the government won't have any reason to yield on this matter because there will always be some way to justify it. A few companies coming together and saying "hey stop" out of what is most likely business interest isn't going to have much of an impact IMO.

    I can't decide whether it's a business move or publicity stunt (maybe both). It certainly isn't about rights or freedom, because most if not all of these companies rely on a certain level of data collection to function. I'm sure they've been encroaching on personal boundaries for years and years themselves, and now, when they see the government is doing it, suddenly it's an issue to deal with.

    If this actually goes anywhere, however, it may possibly spook some other countries utilising similar/worse surveillance methods into toning it down to make sure their own citisens don't bring out the pitchforks. Or maybe not.
     
    Do you see here how well these companies work together? And yet I'm seeing things like the illegal purchase of user data through an alliance of tech companies, which they are using to bring Google and Android down. Like, really? These companies can work so well together the majority of the time, and yet they still continue to try to hurt one another... *shakes head*

    I just hope they'll ally with each other long and strong enough to defeat the U.S. and subsequent governments.


    Right now, the government is ruled by old money. New money is fighting against the government. This is a war of economics, not just a war of politics. No matter what the outcome will be of this, the economic world will change forever - and the world's societies as a result.
     
    I for one am not as informed nor involved as the rest of my internet buddies when it comes to surveillance and internet freedom issues, but I think this actually might work. If the large tech companies (which run monopolies or oligarchies in their markets) refuse to accept/work with the current legislation, either Congress will come up with something that satisfies public opinion better or the current legislation would be unenforceable, eh? I don't think the companies have anything to lose in what they are doing, after all, we are their customers.
     
    I saw some news recently that Obama might try to impose limits on what the NSA can do, if that happens I think more data collection duties will shift to the CIA. According to Washington Post's The Black Budget, in 2013 the US spy agencies spent $4.3 billion on "Conducting cyber operations", the only Internet technology based major objective. I noticed the following in the funding breakdown that seems to sync with that number:

    Computer network operations
    CIA: 0.7
    NSA: 1.0
    Sensitive technical collection*
    CIA: 1.8
    NSA: 0.6

    Total: 4.1 (out of 4.3)

    The rest of the NSA's budget seems to be dedicated to IT management and analysis, while the rest of the CIA's budget went to human intelligence and covert action (James Bond? drones?), so I'm thinking the CIA is probably using IT for super-naughty things like hacking/cracking, rather than mass information gathering, for now!

    The CIA is the only one of the 16 US intelligence agencies that is not part of a larger agency. Whatever restrictions imposed on the military (like the NSA) not only don't apply to them, but the President/Executive branch can't take much action against them anyway. Even if they could, there is probably another step or two the intelligence community can take to continue mass surveillance. Basically its going to be a long wait before mass surveillance is over...

    *another way of putting that is 'covert electronics-based information-gathering', if I'm getting the lingo right
     
    If they lose collection capabilities provided by major tech companies, that'll be putting them a couple steps back, wouldn't it? Do you think tech firm collaboration was an integral part of these surveillance programs or were they more so a convenience? You seem to suggest that surveillance will continue as usual. Right now, I'm thinking about how much this would impact surveillance capabilities. I'm not very well informed on this, so I'm interested in your input (as you seem to be :P).
     
    I think working with American and foreign tech companies and organizations has made their job easier, but they are working as hard as they can to not have to rely on them. Check these out:
    Beginning in 2000, as encryption tools were gradually blanketing the Web, the N.S.A. invested billions of dollars in a clandestine campaign to preserve its ability to eavesdrop. Having lost a public battle in the 1990s to insert its own "back door" in all encryption, it set out to accomplish the same goal by stealth.

    The agency, according to the documents and interviews with industry officials, deployed custom-built, superfast computers to break codes, and began collaborating with technology companies in the United States and abroad to build entry points into their products. The documents do not identify which companies have participated.

    The N.S.A. hacked into target computers to snare messages before they were encrypted. And the agency used its influence as the world's most experienced code maker to covertly introduce weaknesses into the encryption standards followed by hardware and software developers around the world.

    "For the past decade, N.S.A. has led an aggressive, multipronged effort to break widely used Internet encryption technologies," said a 2010 memo describing a briefing about N.S.A. accomplishments for employees of its British counterpart, Government Communications Headquarters, or GCHQ. "Cryptanalytic capabilities are now coming online. Vast amounts of encrypted Internet data which have up till now been discarded are now exploitable."

    [PokeCommunity.com] Major tech companies unite to call for new limits on surveillance

    In this slide from a National Security Agency presentation on "Google Cloud Exploitation," a sketch shows where the "Public Internet" meets the internal "Google Cloud" where user data resides. Two engineers with close ties to Google exploded in profanity when they saw the drawing.

    The National Security Agency has secretly broken into the main communications links that connect Yahoo and Google data centers around the world, according to documents obtained from former NSA contractor Edward Snowden and interviews with knowledgeable officials.

    By tapping those links, the agency has positioned itself to collect at will from hundreds of millions of user accounts, many of them belonging to Americans. The NSA does not keep everything it collects, but it keeps a lot.
     
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